From Carpetbagger to Glamjam
April 14th, 2008 by Wil Robinson
The dusty, pot-holed streets of Kabul led to a section of town where the houses morphed from mud-brick structures to multi-story, brightly painted pink, yellow, and green homes with barbed wire-topped security walls.
I was tracking down the head of the Islamic Scholars Council, who was a supporter of progressive women’s rights based on the teachings of the Quran and Sharia law. But this meeting took an unexpected turn.
Through my interviews, I had become aware that most upper-level decision making and authority was not in the hands of Afghans, but had been appropriated by international aid workers and advisers.
Riding in the little yellow taxi through this upper-echelon neighborhood of Kabul, where each home was replete with a satellite dish and AK-47 armed guards, my eyes confirmed what I had heard with my ears; war-torn Afghanistan had a small fraction of “haves” in a sea of “have nots.”
“These are the parliament members’ houses and minister’s houses,” my partner and translator, Hasib, said.
It figures that the only modern-looking houses I saw in Afghanistan belong to the government bureaucrats. They had been waiting in line since the early 1980s, many from other countries where they lived as refugees, eager to pounce on the leftovers of a government infrastructure after successive wars left behind a scarred country.
We arrived at our destination - a freshly painted green building, surrounded by barbed wire fences and several Kalashnikov-toting guards. After submitting to a rather intimate body search and handing over our cell phones to the guard (to avoid remotely detonating a bomb), we entered to meet with the Islamic scholar.
But it was a chance encounter as we were leaving that made the biggest impression on me. A consultant for ACG (a private telecommunications company that owned the building and had hired the Islamic scholar as a legal adviser) tracked me down. ‘Aymen’ was ambiguous about what his job was with ACG, only saying that he was a “consultant.”
Aymen spoke excellent English and proudly informed me that while was Afghan by birth, he lived in Virginia; he was only visiting for a week. We sat down as he dove into his premeditated spiel about “what Afghanistan really needed.”
“Last month I was talking with Bill Richardson, and I told him that we need to hit the Taliban hard and fast,” Aymen said.
This guy is talking to Bill Richardson? Who else in Washington listens to him? Whose best interest does he really have in mind - Afghanistan, America, or his own?
When Aymen repeated the phrase “free market capitalism is the answer” for the third or fourth time, I began to have my suspicions about his real interests. I was reminded of the Afghan identity of glamjam; it was essentially equivalent to our own American concept of “carpetbagger.”
I suggested confidently that what Afghanistan needed was its own Marshall Plan: a massive influx of American reconstruction dollars on a scale not seen since post-World War II.
Aymen said I was wrong; he assured me that the Marshall Plan only worked in Europe because there was an educated public. Afghanistan had no educated public.
“Why not have part of the reconstruction dollars build a real and effective educated public?” I asked.
“No, this will not work,” Aymen said emphatically. “There is no elite in Afghanistan. If a country has an educated elite, it can function without anything else.”€
Was he suggesting that we only rely on the educated elite and not worry about the millions of other Afghans mired in poverty?
“So what is the solution?” I said, not wanting vocalize my own opinion, lest I offend my Islamic scholar host who had stepped aside from our conversation and was observing his afternoon prayers in the corner of the room.
Aymen dodged the question. He went back to “free market capitalism” and insisting that “security was the first priority.”
Spending a week visiting his homeland from behind barbed wire fences in one of the most tightly-guarded compounds in Kabul certainly was making “security a priority.” The only problem was it was his security, not the average Afghan’s.
Kabul is being divided into different worlds. There is the world of the average Afghan, living in poverty and so poor that any money not spent on food buys firewood to get them through winter. There is the world of the ministers and parliament members, tucked away in their bullet-proof SUVs that speed through the streets. There is the world of the foreign troops, who are seen as targets because of the guns they carry despite their wish to be liberators and friends. There is the world of the international aid worker, some of whom spend their weekend evenings at restaurants drinking illegal alcohol and being escorted home by their Afghan drivers who are privately disgusted by such behavior.
And there is the world of the capitalist; those people who see war as an opportunity to enrich their own personal wealth. They watch from the safety of afar, making judgments about what “their people” need.
Putting decision making and authority into the hands of real Afghans can avoid this division. There are plenty who have a direct stake in their own future - men and women working at the grassroots level who know better than anyone what is really needed. But their voices aren’t heard in the halls of Washington.
Instead capitalists like Aymen, who see Afghanistan as their own entrepreneurial playground, are advising the Washington elite on foreign policy under the guise of democracy and freedom. They collude to guarantee that which capitalism requires in order to survive: the “haves” and the “have nots.”
Tags: terrorism, capitalism, united states, islam, exploit
The UN and NATO both need to reassess their positions in other countries. Thee is too much ill will.
Good to see you back.